is this called living (or something else)
by Ecchymoz
Summary: "Regina doesn't come back for longer than the last time, and Emma forces herself not to worry. Just like her attempts at feeling whole, it fails." [part 1 of the 'dreaming of angels and living without them' serie]


**NA:** So, hum.. I can't explain without spoiling it, but this isn't a happy one; hope you enjoy anyway. Also, it's kind of different from what I posted before.  
a. Thanks to bnaz on tumblr for the beta work! If you see any remaining mistake, it'd be really nice to tell me. Thank you!  
b. Title from Daughter's Amsterdam.  
**Words:** 2,1k  
**Rating:** T

* * *

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Regina doesn't come back for longer than the last time, and Emma forces herself not to worry. Just like her attempts at feeling whole, it fails.

.

Emma lets her keys fall into the ceramic cup, on the sideboard next to the doorstep. As the metal is still ringing, she perceives another sound coming from the living room of her small apartment. She tenses violently and grabs the broom lying on her right. Step by step, she makes her way towards the noise's source... only to find Regina casually sitting on the sofa, waiting for her. Her body relaxes in a single wave of relief and she sighs. It's not the first time that the ex-Madam Mayor has come sneaking around without being invited. Actually, she's _never_ been invited.

"This place is turning into a pigsty," Regina says in her usual low voice, today dripping with disgust as she stares at the empty packet of chips on the coffee table, and at the darker circles left by wet mugs full of hot chocolate from last night. "Maybe you should think of investing your money in cleaning services instead of a television larger than your walls."

"Henry is not complaining," she argues as she sits tiredly in the armchair facing the sofa.

"Of course Henry is not complaining, he's a 15-years-old boy whose cleaning technique consists of hiding everything under his bed."

Outside, the wind is making the nearest tree scratch against the window – the one giving on the street. It's raining. Emma closes her eyes and can almost feel Regina's gaze on her face, but she doesn't care. She just enjoys the sound of life – away from this place, never inside, never directly around her. She focuses on the drops beating the concrete out there, creating large puddles of water, and for an entire breathing cycle she can pretend it's all inside her head – the drip drop of the rain, the cars passing by and the trees' murmurs – and the entire universe melts into her for a single one, glorious moment of peace. It dissolves and she's back to square one.

"Emma." The voice is soft, nothing like the previous tone.

She's so mad at Regina, because they promised – _they promised_ – and she doesn't want to open her eyes, doesn't want to face reality. Not yet. So she keeps them closed and shakes her head. After a long moment, she hears shuffling, steps, a door opening and finally closing. She's alone again.

Maybe she's been playing too much with Henry's old GameCube lately, but she prays for a giant red _Game Over_ to appear over her head and she prays for a _Try Again_ option, for a new set of five lives. Her own life feels like a game of Mario Bros where she died at the first stupid turtle: she's angry, just wants to turn the damn thing off but keeps trying again and again without really knowing why she keeps doing it.

.

She's eating at her parents', at her and Mary Margaret's old loft, when David broaches the subject.

"Since the pawnshop has been abandoned for a little while now, we thought... maybe someone should take over?"

She hates euphemisms. She hates that "the pawnshop has been abandoned" is the politically correct way to say "since Rumple died". An acceptable equivalent would have been either "since Belle can't find a reason to wake up in the morning" or "since Regina put a sword through his chest", but it's too raw, too crude for the life they're desperately trying to give her. So she says nothing and nods.

"And we thought, well, since you're not the sheriff anymore..."

The mere idea of working in Rumple's old shop makes her entire body want to dissolve. She makes the mistake to look at Snow, whose eyes are begging her to be here, to come back to them. And everything is different now, she has a family and she has people to stop disappointing

She manages a small smile, shrugs.

"Why not?"

.

"You shouldn't put this much tomatoes in the salad."

Emma jumps and spins around to find Regina leaning against the countertop, arms crossed over her chest and smirking.

"Fuck's sake Regina! Can you, I don't know, not be so fucking creepy next time!?"

"Language, Swan! I really hope you don't talk like that around Henry."

"It's your own damn fault. How long have you been staring at my ass?"

"First, _do you_ swear like a sailor when our son is around? Second, a little while."

Emma is too stunned at the implicit admission that Regina _was_ staring to realize she's answering.

"Of course I don't, Henry's ears are safe." Then: "Were you really checking me out?"

"It would have been a shame not to take advantage of such a pleasant view," Regina shrugs as if it doesn't make Emma's skin aches with both want and anger.

Emma gasps and doesn't know what to say, because Regina hasn't acknowledged their previous relationship in _months_ and she doesn't understand what's changed now, why they suddenly went from love to nothing to compliments – fucking compliments! – so she just drops whatever comes through her mind with no filter whatsoever.

"If I could, I would take you on the counter right now."

She thinks she sees Regina's eyes darkening, but the brunette doesn't move and only smiles sadly.

"I would let you."

.

She might stab Regina with the knife sometime soon.

"No, no, no! Those are _not_ proper tomato slices. You're cutting it way too thin, there's juice everywhere. You're making a mess!"

She watches as Regina paces in the kitchen, listing all the things she did wrong in the making of a simple salad, and she's so angry that she wants to kiss her. She doesn't, and the next slice is slightly larger. She gets Regina's approbation.

"_That_ looks eatable."

Emma throws a suggestive glance down Regina's cleavage.

"You know what else looks eatable?"

Regina's muffled laugh still echoes inside her head long after the brunette is gone.

.

She sees Belle from afar at the supermarket. She avoids her at all cost because they're too alike for an eventual meeting to be anything but painful – they both know it–, but she observes her for a while.

She sees no light in her blue eyes, no joy in her gentle smile and no understanding of why she's buying food that will keep her alive for a week longer.

She sees herself.

Belle is probably worse though, because she doesn't have a Henry to take care of. She distractedly wonders who will find her with a bullet in her mouth.

(_Poor, poor Ruby_, she thinks three months later.)

.

She works in the pawnshop for god knows how long before she finds the box. It's a simple, rectangular one that doesn't seem to be hiding the remnants of a black curse, so she opens it. She doesn't see the small, golden "R.M" engraved on the wooden top.

Inside, there are only a bunch of papers looking like contracts, and she really doesn't want to know what kind of deals was written by Rumplestiltskin's hand. She's about to put the box down, when she catches Henry's name on one of the most recent-looking sheets. She sits on the floor, back against the counter, and she reads.

First, there's a copy of Henry's adoption papers. It's not a surprise that the imp would keep something like that, since he was the one who arranged the adoption in the first place. She doesn't think much about it, not getting half of the juridical gibberish anyway.

Second, Cora's signature under lines saying that Regina's life would belong to Rumplestiltskin even before she was born. There is nausea in her lungs and she has to close her eyes for a moment before reading the last sheet.

She understands quickly that it's the contract binding Regina to Rumple as his student, written decades ago.

At the end of it, she does throw up.

.

_All direct attempts to end Rumplestiltskin's life made by Regina Mills will be rewarded by immediate death. By signing this contract, Regina Mills approves the cast of a spell on her person, assuring the respect of the aforementioned clause._

Followed by Regina's then childish signature.

.

She bursts into her apartment screaming:

"Regina! Regina I swear to god if you don't show up immediately I will-"

There's a snort coming from her bedroom.

"You will what? Kill me?" says a muffled voice.

She opens the door in a loud bang.

"I hate you! I fucking hate you, you know that? Who gave you the fucking right to ruin-"

Her brain catches up with her eyes. Regina is apparently naked under her sheets; it makes the most inane acts – standing and thinking and living, things she used to do without a second thought – a hundred times more painful. Her tone becomes freezing:

"Get. Out. Of. My. Bed."

Regina doesn't move, doesn't even blink. She only stares at Emma while the blonde deflates in a millisecond, slips to the floor, her back against the wall facing the bed.

Emma breathes in, and breathes out, and breathes in for at least five minutes before finally Regina asks:

"Did you find the contract?"

Emma's throat is too tight, so she nods. She needs to hurt something, as she listens to the woman's useless apologies.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I should've... I don't know. I couldn't tell you, because you would have convinced me there was another way to defeat him, and we would all be dead by now. But I shouldn't have promised to stay alive."

There are tears, again. She can't stand the way her cheeks feel when they're wet and oh god this is all so pointless she wants to stop living but no Henry think of Henry-

"No, you shouldn't have." She's proud when her voice doesn't crack. "God, I'm so mad at you. I fucking hate you."

They both know it's not true, because Emma is so in love with Regina that almost a year after she saw the casket disappear under the ground, she still talks to her. And fucking god, she thinks, True Love is really a piece of work because somehow, Regina always finds a way to answer.

.

"Are you even real?" she asks naively when she's finally ready, after 10 months of denial.

"I'm dead. What do you think?"

"I don't know, you tell me. You're the one that won't leave me alone."

Then suddenly, for no apparent reason, the anger is back with a vengeance.

"You're also the one who didn't do what they were supposed to do. We had a deal, remember? We would survive through Rumple's bullshit of a war and we would live in the mansion with our son. We would have tons of amazing sex and I was looking for our second child's name when you decided to play the hero and fuck it all up. What were you even thinking about!? Did you really think I could go on without you?"

She takes a breath.

"And why the hell are you here? Is it all in my head? Am I sick or something? Tell me you're not pulling a Denny Duquette on me," she demands.

Regina gets up, slips her gloriously naked legs into some panties (are the panties real? would a sane person see them floating in the air or see absolutely nothing? she doesn't know, doesn't want to be practical about it) and crouches before Emma. They're as close as it's possible to be without touching, and damn if dead-Regina isn't just as beautiful as the real one. Emma looks at her perfect face and tries to memorize her traits; she doesn't know when Regina will stop appearing every time she wants her to. Brown, shining eyes, full lips, hidden beauty spots; she wants them burned behind her eyelids forever. She would try to cup her cheek if she didn't know she would just pet the air.

"Emma, when we promised each other to stay alive... Do you remember what I said?"

"Yeah. You said 'I promise' and then you died on purpose because you're a fucking liar."

"I also said that I would be here every time you needed me. I think that's why I'm here."

"Then you're going to stay a while. Because, Regina, we both know how badly my life sucks when you're not in it.

.

She's sitting at the kitchen's table when Henry comes back from school. Rumple's papers are scattered all over the wooden surface, but she grips the most important one in her fist.

"Emma? What are you do- What's all this?"

He approaches carefully and she hands him the contract.

She can see clearly on his face when he gets to the part that turned her organs to steel and made her cells implode. She's expecting rage.

Henry's smile is brighter than it's been in months.

"She was _good_."

And then her shirt is soaked with his tears, and his hair with hers.


End file.
